Mexico's Escalera Nautica web site (English version)

 News and Articles related to the Escalera Nautica

 

· A prioritary project the Escalera: Navarro

· The Escalera Nautica will be detonating of development: Cota

· Escalera Nautica, great opportunities for investors: McCarthy

· Thousands of million dollars in public and private investment

· Day-Tripping Baja By Boat

 

 

A prioritary project the Escalera: Navarro. Acapulco Guerrero. In the recent Mexican Tourism Industry Fair in Acapulco Guerrero and before the presence of the President of Mexico Vicente Fox, the Federal Tourism Secretary Leticia Navarro indicated that the Escalera Nautica megaproject is considered like high-priority for the tourist development of the country.

Before national and foreign industralists and suppliers related to the tourist activity, Tourism Secretary Navarro detailed some of the reaches and goodness of the Escalera Nautica megaproject, considered by the Federal Government as a national priority.

 

At the end of her intervention, Secretary Navarro mentioned that in the next weeks the Federal Government and all the states involved in this megaproject will be working on the details of their respective roles to continuing supporting this megaproject, as well as new investment programs. Finally Navarro said that the federal budget for the project is already in use as scheduled.

 

The Escalera Nautica will be detonating of development: Cota . La Paz Baja California Sur. When rendering its Second Report of Government, the Governor of Baja California Sur Leonel Cota mentioned the important advances of the Escalera Nautica, which considers will be a detonating of economic and social development in the north region of the country.

See a brief summary of the Second Annual Report of the Governor of Baja California Sur regarding to the Escalera Nautica (including in the tourism chapter):

 

On February 21th was signed the formal agreement to continue the development and investment of the megaproject Escalera Nautica of the Sea of Cortes, old yearning of the states of the gulf of California, that represents the possibility of a new impulse economic integration, generation of investment opportunities, local creation of uses and developments in the coastal zones of the four States.

 

The event had like seat the City of La Paz, South Baja California, being present in the act the C. Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada; President of the Mexican United States, the C. Lic Leticia Navarro Ochoa; Secretary of Tourism, C. Lic. John McCarthy Sandland; Chief of a main directorate of Fonatur, C. Lic. Alexander González Alcocer; Governor of Baja California, C. Lic. Armando López Nogales; Governor of Sonora; the C. Lic. Juan S. Millán Lizarraga; Governor of Sinaloa and like participant and host the C. Lic. Leonel Cota Montaño; Governor of South Baja California. This formal signature/agreement will bring with himself a great impact in the regional development, the generation of employment and foreign currency pick up; the tourism is a high-priority activity that it requires of constant efforts to increase the competitiveness of his products and the more important tourist regions, fundamentally through the diversification of the activities of the tourist, exactly where the segment nautical offers enormous perspective of growth.

 

In the different meetings of work with the federal officials in charge to coordinate the works of the Escalera Nautica diverse subjects and proposals where reached about the Escalera Nautica in South Baja California, the form in which this it would benefit to all the states and municipalities from the region, as well as their economic and promotion advantages.

The region of the Sea of Cortes that includes parts of the States of Baja California, South Baja California, Sonora and Sinaloa, has the highest potential at national level to develop the tourism nautical due to its high biodiversity, to the wealth of the sport fishing, to the scenic value of the coast and to the favorable conditions for navigation.

 

In order to detonate the accelerated growth of the nautical tourism, to elevate the tourist affluence and to contribute to the regional development of the Sea of Cortes, as well as to promote the rational advantage and the conservation of the natural resources of this zone, the Federal Government altogether with the four state governments, by conduit of Fonatur, is promoting with great determination the Escalera Nautica in the four states indicated. This extraordinary project will be identified from now on as Escalera Nautica.

 

The Escalera Nautica imply the construction, complementation, improvement and modernization of different nautical, airport and wagon infrastructure works, as the case of the proposed nautical inns in Cabo Colnett, San Luis Gonzaga, Puerto Canoas, Santa Rosalía, Bahía de los Angeles, Bahía de Tortugas, Punta Abreojos, San Juanico, Bahia Kino and Altata, as well as the existing integration of diverse airports and aerodromes, which will impel the tourist development of the states along the Sea of Cortes.

 

Escalera, great oportunities for investors: McCarthy. Guaymas-Bahía San Carlos Sonora. John McCarthy Director of the Federal Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) announced in a recent visit to San Carlos Bay that the Escalera Nautica project raises matchless opportunities for national and foreign investors. The Fonatur Director who supervised the main advances of the Bacochibampo Marine and joined a meeting with local and state tourism entrepeneurs announced that all the federal economic funds for the megaproject as well as the local funds had been spended as scheduled in the master plan of the megaproject.

 

McCarthy mentioned that several national and foreign investors have already begun to invest millions of dollars in this megaproject, considered by President Vicente Fox as an startegic concern for Mexico. At the end of his visit McCarthy made a compromise to visit more often this city to supervise the advances of the project as well as to promote it among investors.

Finally, the Fonatur Director announced that in order to protect the natural resources and ecosystem of the Escalera Nautica, the master plan of the project have a special franchise licences rules to regulate the tourist activity. This system may allow the Government to have a better control of the nautical and tourism activities and its relationship with the ecosystem.

Thousands of million dollars in public and private investment

From now on the Escalera Nautica seeks to generate more than 11.000 million dollars (the country as a whole caught in the 2000 more than 8.300 million dollars), to generate near 50 thousand permanent jobs, to catch for year 2010 more than 5 million tourists (at the moment the country catches little more than 20 million annual visitors which locate it in the eighth world-wide site in arrivals of international tourists), as well as to receive more than 60 thousand tourists boats annually. Experts calculates that the tourist affluence in the four states that integrate the megaproject would have a growth of more of 800%.

 

President Vicente Fox and Secretary of Tourism Leticia Navarro indicates that the Federal Government of Mexico already began to exert 2.211 million to develop the necessary infrastructure of the Escalera Nautica, that will as well generate gradually a private investment of more than 2.000 million dollars, which turns Escalera Nautica the most ambitious project in the history of the tourism sector in Mexico.

 

On the other hand, the Director of the Fonatur John McCarthy, indicates that while these 2.211 million of federal investment will be applied in next 6 years, the 2.000 million dollars that the private sector will invest could occur in a maximum term of 10 years.

 

McCarthy details that of the total of the initial investment (2.211 million) approximately 851 million will be destined for nautical infrastructure and 1.360 million for regional infrastructure.

As additional data the Federal Government indicates that for this 2001, in spite of the American/Mexican economic deceleration, between January and June 4.700 million dollars in the tourist activity were attracted, reason by which the expectations for this year are good, trying to close the tourism activity this year with gains by the order of the 8.900 million dollars, no matter the impact of the recent US terrorist attacks in the mexican tourism sector.

In general terms in the this 2001 sector it reports investments by 1.519 million dollars, of which 70% are national and the rest 30% foreigner. Data as these give an exemple of the constant growth of the tourist industry of Mexico and give sustenance to megaprojects that as the one of the Escalera Nautica already is attracting great financial investments (trying to catch for the 2010 up to 11.000 million dollars).

 

From the SAN DIEGO METROPOLITAN

Day-Tripping Baja By Boat

Patrick Osio Jr.

The Mexican government is promoting the development of a chain of 22 marinas around Baja California Get ready to hear quite a bit about Baja California’s Escalera Nautica over the next few years. Literally translated it means “Nautical Ladder,” but a better description is “Nautical Route.” In days of old, Fathers Junipero Serra and Eusebio Kino traveled throughout the Baja California peninsula and present-day California establishing missions. Well, the Escalera is something similar, except that instead of inland religious missions, it will be marinas along the Pacific and Sea of Cortes coasts, followed by the same along the Sonora and Sinaloa mainland states with Sea of Cortes coastlines.

 

The original missions were built at distances of one day’s travel by horse or cart. Similarly, the Escalera’s marinas will be at one day’s travel by boat — about 120 nautical miles apart.

The plan calls for 22 full-service marinas, 10 of them new. Of the 12 existing, seven will be improved and five are judged as already adequate. The 10 new marinas will be located on sites with natural shelter, or bays, a feature the peninsula has in abundance. Five of these are to be in Baja California, three in Baja California Sur, and one each in Sonora and Sinaloa.

 

Additionally, the plan calls for an 84-mile highway route for towing boats from one side of the peninsula to the other. This feature will allow boat travelers quick access to either body of water for those without time or interest in sailing around the southernmost tip of Baja California Sur. Further, the plan calls for improving the road between Mexicali and San Felipe to allow bigger-boat towing rigs crossborder access to the Sea of Cortes.

 

The plan also calls for improvements in 10 existing airports and 10 airstrips to make it easier for tourists to get to the chain of marinas. In this manner, Mexico hopes it will attract year-round mooring and rental income.

 

In support of the project, John McCarthy, the director of Mexico’s Fonatur (national fund for the promotion of tourism) anticipates that once completed, no less than 52,000 American boat owners will set sail to those destinations and a good number will permanently moor in the various marinas. Moreover he estimates that 76,400 boats will be cruising Baja coastlines by 2010 and that by 2014 there will be 5.4 million nautical tourists. (Today there are 1.65 million registered boats in the Southwestern United States.)

 

The Mexican government has designated Escalera Nautica as the anchor tourist project during the Fox administration. Of course, it was presented during the last two months of the Zedillo administration, so Fox inherited it.

 

But it really goes farther back than either Fox or Zedillo. It was in the early 1970s when this project was envisioned, studies performed and the peninsula mapped to locate placement of the marinas now being promoted. A consortium of multinational United States companies, which included the likes of Atlantic Richfield (now ARCO), created a mega-fund known as ADELA, at the urging of then U.S. Sen. Jacob Javits of New York.

 

ADELA had several projects, among them a strategic alliance with Crocker land and other companies to develop Baja California, which was to include marinas and infrastructure projects such as desalination plants.

 

By 1973, the Baja California peninsula study and mapping was completed, and a grand presentation was scheduled at Los Pinos when the Mexican White House was occupied by President Luis Echeverria Alvarez. Echeverria was a very erratic person and though well apprised of the project, announced on the day of the presentation that “Mexico is not for sale” and walked out of the room. So the plans have lingered somewhere gathering dust until recently.

 

If Mexico can pull off the project, it will transform the Baja Californias into one huge tourist destination peninsula. Such a project by necessity would include hotels and golf courses along with every conceivable tourist-related amenity imaginable.

 

Since the Mexican government has decided to spend about $222 million on the project during the next six years, the several billion dollars needed for hotels, golf courses, et al., will have to come from private sources. And most of it will have to come from foreign sources.

 

This is where the opposition comes in — dubbing the entire project’s hidden purpose as one big land speculation promotion, because it clashes with the conservation objectives of the Biosphere Reserve of the Gulf Islands, the Loreto Bay National Park, the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve and the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve. Opponents claim that from an environmental point of view the project is totally incompatible with the Sustainable Development Program of the Sea of Cortes.

 

As of yet, Fonatur has not submitted an environmental impact assessment for the Escalera Nautica, as is mandated by Mexican law. But McCarthy reports that “the project is not only sustainable from an environmental point of view, but also in terms of profits, and it will improve the socioeconomic situation of the communities and local populations, which provides service in the tourist centers, as a way of fighting poverty.”

 

The sides are lining up — environmentalist and status quo supporters on one side, federal and state officials with private sector investment promoters and land owners on the other. It is certainly going to get interesting.

 

Key Environmental Organizations:

 

Pro-Peninsula -- San Diego organization dedicated to protecting Baja's natural environment.

Wildcoast.net -- Dedicated to preserving the coastal wildlands of the Californias. Report showing the marina already under construction at Santa Rosalilita.

Sea Shepherd society -- Highly active conservation group and outspoken critic of La Escalera Nautica.

The Sea of Cortez Foundation -- Devotes much attention to the many assualts on the "Aquarium of the World." Focused primarily on La Escalera's impact on the Cortez.

Surfrider Foundation -- Devoted to protecting coastal waters, and surfing areas, in particular. Its web site doesn't mention it, but it is becoming involved, according to a letter I received from one if its directors.

BajaQuest™  Online – Online discussion on Baja California’s Escalera Nautica

 

Maps from the Escalera Nautica web site

 

· Mapa 1 (Proyecto a Largo Plazo - Long Term Project)

· Mapa 2 (Primera Etapa 2001-2006 - First Stage 2001-2006)

· Mapa 3 (Adquisición de Reservas Territoriales - Acquisition of Territorial Reserves)

· Mapa 4 (Distacias entre "escalones" de la Escalera - Distances between the Escalera "steps")

· Mapa 5 (Areas Naturales Protegidas - Protected Natural Areas)